Why is South Africa abbreviated as ZA?
I just got back from South Africa, where most of the URL’s end with .co.za. I’ve also seen the country abbreviated as ZA. Is there a reason why ZA is used instead of SA? None of the official names for South Africa involve a Z and the domain .sa doesn’t seem to be used by any other country, as far as I can tell.
The only answer I got so far was something along the lines of “they ran out of letters by the time they got to the bottom of the world.”
It’s from the Dutch Zuid-Afrikaanse.Which means “South African”; the Dutch for “South Africa” is “Zuid-Afrika.”
This raises more questions than it asks, though. Why would the official abbreviation come from the country’s name in Dutch?
The Afrikaans for “South Africa” is “Suid-Afrika” so SA would be more logical.
This raises more questions than it asks, though. Why would the official abbreviation come from the country’s name in Dutch?
The Afrikaans for “South Africa” is “Suid-Afrika” so SA would be more logical.